The State of the Art(12)
up to his eye cluster.He shook it, then up-ended it
and stuck its top down at the leaves it had burned,
and shook it again.
He brought it back up to inspect it more closely.
Damn funny thing to have come out of a seed pod,
he thought, twisting the object this way and that.It
looked a little like a grazer except it was thinner
and silvery and the head was just a smooth
reflective sphere.Fropome could not work out how
it stayed upright.The over-large top made it look
especially unbalanced.Possibly it wasn't meant to
totter around for long; those pointed leg-like parts
were probably roots.The thing wriggled in his
grasp.
He tore off a little of the silvery outer bark and
tasted it in a nestrap.He spat it out again.Not
animal or vegetable; more like mineral.Very odd.
Root-pink tendrils squirmed at the end of the
stubby upper limb, where Fropome had torn the
outer covering off.Fropome looked at them, and
wondered.
He took hold of one of the little pink filaments and
pulled.
It came off with a faint 'pop'.Another, muffled-
sounding noise came from the silvery top of the
creature.
She loves me
Fropome pulled off another tendril.Pop.Sap the
colour of the setting sun dribbled out.
She loves me not
Pop pop pop.He completed that set of tendrils:
She loves me
Excited, Fropome pulled the covering off the end
of the other upper limb.More tendrilsShe loves me
not.
A grazer cub came up and pulled at one of
Fropome's lower branches.In its mouth it held the
silvery creature's burner device, which had hit it
on the flank.Fropome ignored it.
She loves me
The grazer cub gave up pulling at Fropome's
branch.It squatted down on the meadow, dropping
the burner on the grass and prodding inquisitively
at it with one paw.
The silvery seedlet was wriggling enthusiastically
in Fropome's grip, thin red sap spraying
everywhere.
Fropome completed the tendrils on the second
upper limb.
Pop.She loves me not.
Oh no!
The grazer cub licked the burner, tapped it with its
paw.One of the other cubs saw it playing with the
bright toy and started ambling over towards it.
On a hunch, Fropome tore the covering off the
blunt roots at the base of the creature.Ah ha!
She loves me
The grazer cub at Fropome's side got bored with
the shiny bauble; it was about to abandon the thing
where it lay when it saw its sibling approaching,
looking inquisitive.The first cub growled and
started trying to pick the burner up with its mouth.
Pop She loves me not!
Ah!Death!Shall my pollen never dust her perfectly
formed ovaries?Oh, wicked, balanced, so blandly
symmetrical even universe!
In his rage, Fropome ripped the silvery covering
right off the lower half of the leaking, weakly
struggling seedlet.
Oh unfair life!Oh trecherous stars!
The growling grazer cub hefted the burner device
into its mouth.
Something clicked.The cub's head exploded.
Fropome didn't pay too much attention.He was
staring intently at the bark-stripped creature he
held.
wait a moment there was something left.Up there,
just where the roots met
Thank heavens; the thing was odd after all!
Oh happy day!(pop)
She loves me!
Descendant
I am down, fallen as far as I am going
to.Outwardly, I am just something on the surface, a
body in a suit.Inwardly
Everything is difficult.I hurt.
I feel better now.This is the third day.All I recall
of the other two is that they were there; I don't
remember any details.I haven't been getting better
steadily, either, as what happened yesterday is
even more blurred than the day before, the day of
the fall.
I think I had the idea then that I was being born.A
primitive, old-fashioned, almost animal birth;
bloody and messy and dangerous.I took part and
watched at the same time; I was the born and the
birthing, and when, suddenly, I felt I could move, I
jerked upright, trying to sit up and wipe my eyes,
but my gloved hands hit the visor, centimetres in
front of my eyes, and I fell back, raising dust.I
blacked out.
Now it is the third day, however, and the suit and I
are in better shape, ready to move off, start
travelling.
I am sitting on a big rough rock in a boulderfield
halfway up a long, gently sloping escarpment.I
think it's a scarp.It might be the swell towards the
lip of the big crater, but I haven't spotted any
obvious secondaries that might belong to a hole in
the direction of the rise, and there's no evidence of
strata overflip.
Probably an escarpment then, and not too steep on
the other side, I hope.I prepare myself by thinking
of the way ahead before I actually start walking.I
suck at the little tube near my chin and draw some
thin, acidic stuff into my mouth.I swallow with an
effort.
The sky here is bright pink.It is mid-morning, and